Whoever has followed the fierce campaign launched against Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 Fifa World Cup can easily notice the hateful discourse in a number of international newspapers. These newspapers dwell on what they call the “scandals of World Cup 2022”.
As Qataris, we are not the only people who understand the reasons behind this inimical attitude. A number of political — not sports — analysts know that money from some rich countries has been used to provoke the international media against Qatar and has played an important role in mobilising the Western media against Qatar.
Focusing on specific issues and inciting a number of organisations against Qatar at this juncture does nothing but get politics involved in a sporting issue. Rumours about the death of workers during construction of sports facilities for the 2022 World Cup started to spread even before Qatar had begun building any sports infrastructure for the tournament.
This campaign coincided with another political campaign sponsored by some rich people who incited the media against Qatar following the Arab Spring revolutions.
While international organisations are fiercely critical of Qatar, they turn a blind eye to the treatment of workers in neighbouring countries, even though the condition of workers in these countries is similar to that of their peers in Qatar, whether because of sponsorship or any other reason.
This is why the attitude of the international media and the reports of international organisations that claim to be objective are astounding.
We know that Qatar is under fire and will remain so as far as the aforementioned issue is concerned. It will remain under media focus and fire because of the 2022 World Cup. Qatar will also continue to face international scrutiny as far as other issues are concerned.
We have started seeing criticism on issues where politics and sports mingle, but with no political or sporting reason for such criticism.
We can accept objective criticism and use it to develop things in our country, whether it is related to the people who work in Qatar or policies the government follows to fulfil citizens’ needs.
We have been hoping that international organisations and newspapers that claim to be objective do the following two things:
First, they should throw light on what they describe as “violations committed against workers” before Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup, given the fact that these international organisations and newspapers claim that they are concerned only about human rights. The fact, however, is that these organisations and newspapers use human rights as a pretext for achieving other goals.
Second, these organisations and newspapers should also pay attention to workers’ conditions in other countries that depend on foreign labour. They should not focus on Qatar alone.
In order to be objective, these organisations and newspapers should also have mentioned steps taken by Qatar in this regard. Has not Qatar established workers’ townships? Has it not created the largest space for freedom of religion, even as some adherents of other religions refused to practice their own religion in an Islamic country? I am sorry to say this, but none of the reports of these international organisations and newspapers mentioned these facts.
We are fully aware of the magnitude of the campaign launched against Qatar. We are also aware of the people fanning this campaign. We also know that we Qataris transparently discussed the issue of rights before many others did, and we are improving working conditions and labour laws before others do this.
We need to underscore the fact that we will never accept facts to be distorted or glossed over. We also cannot accept dictates from outside on any of these issues.
